I was alerted to the existence of this quite remarkable plaster figure when visiting the exellent website of the estimable Mathew Crowther - a must visit site for anyone interested in Engravings and Graphic Satire of the 18th and early 19th centuries.

A full-length portrait, slightly to the left, showing Waters wearing a
red waistcoat (with a pipe? in the left pocket), white shirt, yellow
neckerchief and dark trousers, with a leather belt about his waist. His left
hand is on a walking stick, which supports him; a false leg is strapped to the
stump of his right leg. The background is painted gold. Billy Waters
(c.1778–1823) was born in America during the War of Independence. He was a
sailor and lost his right leg as a result of falling from the topsail yard of
the 'Ganymede'. Unable to serve at sea, he became a famous London street
entertainer and was often to be seen busking with his fiddle to support his
family. Waters featured in Pierce Egan’s 'Life in London' (1820–21) and was one
of the characters illustrated by George Cruikshank. Indeed, Waters appeared in
several Cruikshank cartoons, including 'The New Union Club' (NMM, ZBA2498).
When Egan’s book was adapted into a play and performed at the Adelphi Theatre,
Waters – who had been busking outside – was invited on stage to play himself.
He repeated the performance at the Caledonian Theatre in Edinburgh. Waters
ended his days in St Giles’s Workhouse, having fallen ill and been forced to
pawn his fiddle. He was elected ‘king of the beggars’ shortly before his death.

________________________________

Lead Glazes Earthenware c 1825

Victoria and Albert Museum

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O70193/billy-waters-figure-unknown/

Derby Figure of about 1862.

A version of this figure was first produced in about 1823.

___________________________

From the will of Billy Waters

Thus poor Black Billy's made his Will,His Property was small good lack,For till the day death did him killHis house he carried on his back.The Adelphi now may say alas!And to his memory raise a stone:Their gold will be exchanged for brass,Since poor Black Billy's dead and gone.

This Bust has a superficial resemblance to the Roubiliac Busts of Alexander Pope, the drapery on the bust is almost exactly the same as that on the majority of the Roubiliac type busts of Pope but the features are not even close to the Roubiliac busts.

I have so far discovered two versions of this bust - one in the collection of my great friend and fellow enthusiast Peter Hone and another at the National Trust house Sudbury Hall, Derbyshire.

Peter Hone has owned this bust for many years see the photographs below.

The two busts have obviously come from the same original? source but the socles are completely different. The socle and support on the Sudbury are very similar to that used very frequently by Joseph Nollekens based on an antique precedent.

The Sudbury bust is from one of a group of 5 similar busts at Sudbury Hall (see photographs below).

Some rather poor low resolution photographs from the National Trust website.

NB turned socle and Nollekens type support which appears on the busts depicted below - all at Sudbury, Derbyshire.

______________________________________

Edmund Spenser

described on the National Trust website as by (Robert) Shout.

I presume this means that it is inscribed on the back. Given that all five busts share the same detail of the socle and support it follows that it would be safe to assume that these five busts all came from the same manufacturer Robert Shout.

________________________

Sir Joshua Reynolds

Plaster

Sudbury Hall.

Joshua Reynolds.

Plaster Bust

After Guiseppe Ceracchi

This must have been cast from Ceracchi’s bust of Reynolds in terracotta, dated 1778, which had been presented to the Royal Academy in 1810.

The terracotta bust had been sold in auction by Greenwood in 1792.

A marble was in the possession of

There is a version by P Sarti at the Atheneum London (see below) -

They say Sarti made new moulds of the bust, but was not allowed to keep them for his own use. "The tunic and cloak were added to the portrait by Sarti, to make the format similar to the others"?

Ceracchi’s terracotta was apparently destroyed (The Age of Neo-Classicism, Council of Europe Exhibition Catalogue, London 1972, no. 335).

The Royal Academy now possesses an undated marble version of the bust, signed Cirachi sculpsit Roma, which was presented by Lord Taunton in 1851. On the cast in the Octagon at the Burlington House (built 1868), the pinned cloak is different from the marble, which suggests that it too had been made from the lost terracotta.

Bust of Sir Joshua Reynolds

by Giuseppe Ceracchi (1751 -1801).

c.1778 - 9.

Royal Academy

Much of this information from - http://www.victorianweb.org/sculpture/athenaeum/catalogue.html

notes to the busts by the estimable John Kenworthy Brown.

Illustrated on this website are busts of Edmund Burke, David Garrick, William Harvey, Dr Samuel Johnson John Locke, Milton William Murray (Lord Mansfield). Isaac Newton, Sir Walter Scott, and William Shakespeare - all with the same support to the bust but with no socles.

________________________

Bust of Sir Joshua Reynolds

Athenaeum Club

adapted by Sarti from the original by Ceracchi

Bust of Sir Joshua Reynolds after Ceracci -

Plaster

Athenaeum Club.

http://www.victorianweb.org/sculpture/athenaeum/catalogue.html

____________________________________

Described on the National Trust website as Classical Man

Francis Bacon

After the bust by John Cheere.

There is a version of this bust in bronzes Plaster at York Museums originally supplied to Kirkleatham Hall (see below) by John Cheere in 1749.

Robert Shout (described as Mason) insured 12 Eagle Street, Red Lyon Square with the Sun Insurance Company I February 1791

Benjamin and Robert Shout described as Masons and Statuaries are noted as occupying a property behind 13 Eagle Street, Red Lyon Square 31 March 1792 in the records of the Sun Fire Insurance Company (London Metropolitan Archives -

Copy of the list of products available from Robert Shout

c.1801 - 1824.

Trade Card for Benjamin and Robert Shout

Printed sometime prior to the death of Ben. Shout in 1811.

Both cards above from the British Museum Collection.

After the death of Nollekens his assistant Alexander Goblet sold 42 moulds for busts including Jonson and Mansfield to the Plaster Cast manufacturer James Deville (1777 - 1846).

It would appear that Sarti obtained the moulds for some of his busts at some time from the Deville Studio.

The fashion for library busts lasted over two centuries. The busts of various literary, scientific and political characters had a long life. It appears that some of these busts originally cast by John Cheere in the 1740's were then produced by Messrs Harris and Parker in the Strand in the later 18th century. The moulds or masters were then passed to Messrs Shout of Holborn before ending up with Mr Sarti.

__________________________

Group of busts sold at Christie's New York.

sold lot 161, 7 May 2008.

from the Gladstone Collection at Fasque.

Described as A SET OF TWELVE
ENGLISH PAINTED PLASTER BUSTS CAST BY B. & R. SHOUT, FIRST QUARTER 19TH CENTURY.

King Alfred after Rysbrack, John Milton, after original cast by Cheere), William Pitt, Charles James Fox, William Shakespeare ( Poss cast from an original by John Cheere - another at the Wren Library Trinity College Cambridge), Alexander
Pope (after Roubiliac Milton/Fitzwilliam), John Dryden, Alfred the Great, Edmund Burke, Sir Isaac Newton (after Cheere), John
Locke (after Cheere), Samuel Johnson, Milton and Voltaire; each on circular socle topped by a name
tablet.

NB also the bust of Pope - this is either a version of the Milton / Fitzwilliam bust of Pope or the later copy by Nollekens. This certainly lends credence to the fact that the Sudbury and Hone busts illustrated above are not poorly sculpted variants of the Roubiliac Pope busts.

______________________________________

Another pair of busts by Shout

Sold Christies New York lot 162, 7 May 2008.

Described in the

Catalogue as -

A PAIR OF ENGLISH
PAINTED PLASTER BUSTS OF HOMER AND VIRGIL

AFTER THE ANTIQUE, CAST BY B. & R. SHOUT, FIRST QUARTER 19TH CENTURY
Each depicted facing frontally on circular socle topped by a name tablet,
Virgil indistinctly marked 'Holborn' to the reverse
22½ in. (57 cm.) high (2).

Again note the detail of socles and supports.

_________________________________

Bust of George Washington after Houdon inscribed Shout, Holborn

Peter Hone Collection

Sold at Christies South Kensington.

Sarah Siddons (1775 - 1831)

Actress

Plaster bust

Robert Shout

Victoria and Albert Museum

see - http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O310763/self-portrait-sarah-siddons-bust-siddons-sarah/

________________________________________

The Peter Hone bust

with Paper Label from Sandal Hall, Wakefield.

_______________________________

__________________________

Just to avoid any confusion and for comparison with the bust above - below are photographs of the Roubiliac Terracotta and the Marble bust of Pope and the Nollekens Marble bust of Pope now in the Met. The similarity of the drapery on the above bust to the Roubiliac busts should be noted.

This suggests to me that the bust above is taken from another bust from Roubiliac's Studio - Roubiliac sometimes reused the drapery of busts he had created on other busts - the Marble bust of Plato in the Library at Trinity College Dublin by Roubiliac uses this same drapery. See my Trinity College Blog entry. -

The Terracotta Bust of Alexander Pope by Roubiliac now in the Barber Institute. Birmingham.

The Milton Fitzwilliam bust of Pope by Roubiliac

___________________

The Metropolitan Museum of the Nollekens bust of Pope.

____________________________

Pietro Sarti (1793 - 1868).

For a very useful potted biographies of Pietro (Peter) Sarti (1793 - 1868) and the various members of the Sarti family of plaster cast manufacturers compiled by Jacob Simon of the National Portrait Gallery see

For taken down
& putting twice the Apollo and altering four times the leaf

3. 10. 0

Bust of Garrick

1. 10. 0

All the Articles in
this Bill

are correct. C Daly
£42. 2. 6

Certified to be
correct

Decimus Burton

24 April 1830

[Endorsed:] 1830

Casts Ordered for
payment

Sarti Building
Committee

26 April

Received 30 April
of the Trustees of the

Athenæum the sum of
Forty two pounds two

shillings and
sixpence being the amount of

my Bill for Casts
supplied to the New

Building to this
time – £42. 2. 6 P. Sarti

____________________________

Further busts by
Sarti using the shout type socle and support

In the Collection of the National Trust, Wimpole Hall,
Cambridgeshire.

The National Trust
owns full-size plaster busts of Locke (white plaster), Milton and Dryden (both
‘bronzed’), and Pope (‘bronzed’, but a different model from that at the Wren
Library). All four have the impressed signature ‘P. Sarti, Dean Street, Soho’. They
may originally have been at Wimpole, but are more likely to have been acquired
as a job lot after 1936 by Captain George and Elsie Bambridge, who owned and
refurnished the house.

Alexander Pope

Roubiliac Type

Height 62 cms

Milton

Height 71 cms

Dryden

Height 71 cms.

JohnLocke

Height 74 cms.

William Pitt the Younger

after Nollekens

Height 70 cms.

For a very useful essay by Jacob Simon of The National Portrait Gallery see -

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"The historian should be fearless and incorruptible; a man of independence, loving frankness and truth; one who, as the poets says, calls a fig a fig and a spade a spade. He should yield to neither hatred nor affection, not should be unsparing and unpitying. He should be neither shy nor deprecating, but an impartial judge, giving each side all it deserves but no more. He should know in his writing no country and no city; he should bow to no authority and acknowledge no king. He should never consider what this or that man will think, but should state the facts as they really occurred. Lucian of Samosata